Decidedly NOT the Nutcracker - Tchaikovsky's Dumka

While most of his output was decidedly not what the Mighty Five may have wanted him to produce, Tchaikovsky nevertheless has his nationalist moments.  This piece, along with his first sonata, seem to fit into that category, drawing on folk themes and, in the case of this Dumka, structures, to create works.  It should also be noted that Tchaikovsky made significant contributions to the canon of vocal works used in the Orthodox church... perhaps he wasn't so far off from nationalistic aims as everyone surmises him to be.

In this work, I don't hear the Tchaikovsky that is evident in so much of his symphonic work.  Sure, there are ornamented passages, and devices that he would use in later works, but overall, he keeps things quite a bit more simple than what is to come in his writing.  I appreciate this very much - the work maintains virtuosity without overwrought figures that create emotion.  There is already so much contrast of character from one iteration of the theme to the next, that heightening those shifts artificially would have, to me, made the piece seem more forced than well composed.  That being said, in his later works, those devices are not necessarily wrong... they just wouldn't fit as well here.  To that end, most critical views of his sonata say similar things, often asking why folk themes are so embellished, why he would include such opening material, and so forth, although I wouldn't go as far as to say the addition of that material in the sonata is wrong.